the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (the RSS’s overseas affiliate) mobilised 19,000 people, each of whom paid $5000 to $10,000 to attend. Most were non-resident Indians (NRIs), who are culturally insecure and divided over their identity. They long for the country they have left behind and try to manufacture its images through arcane rituals and obscurantist practices, which resident middle class Indians discarded long ago.

If the Narendra Modi government wanted to dismay and embarrass many of its supporters even before completing a hundred days in office, it could not have done so more effectively than by announcing two major decisions: Cancelling the foreign secretary-level meeting with Pakistan scheduled for August 25, and abolishing the Planning Commission at home.

More than a month after Israel launched a murderous onslaught on the Gaza Strip, with over 2,000 casualties, there’s still no clarity about when “Operation Protective Edge” might end—despite the recent extension of a ceasefire. Israel has destroyed 10,000 homes, turned a quarter of Gaza’s population into refugees, and repeatedly targeted civilian installations, including schools, hospitals and United Nations-designated shelters—in flagrant violation of international law.

What is the significance of Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow and Beijing, probably his last one as Prime Minister? Beyond all the pomp and show, military and energy deals, and talks on settling India’s Eastern border, lies the real substance. Singh is finally rethinking the approach of putting all of India’s eggs in the United States basket and exploring a consolidation of India’s economic-political relations with other countries, especially China and Russia.

So addicted has India’s power elite become to being treated as the proud representative of a rising great power embarked on an unstoppable march forward that it finds India’s declining global stature and influence in recent months simply incomprehensible. The signs of decline are unmistakable. The “India Story” is no longer the world’s flavour of the month, “the Next China” metaphor has faded from the Western media, and the seamy side of Indian reality is being highlighted, including the country’s raucous politics, poor social indicators, and the embattled state of a government mired in internal strife and corruption.

Did India snatch defeat from the jaws of victory during its Prime Minister’s first visit to Bangladesh in 12 long years? Did Manmohan Singh squander a historic chance to make a decisive break with the mutual suspicion and avoidable tension that mark India-Bangladesh relations?

When India got elected last week to the United Nations Security Council as one of its five temporary members for two years, Foreign Minister SM Krishna was ecstatic. He termed this a “big day for Indian diplomacy” and a “reflection of the expectations that the world has from us”. The media joined the chorus to celebrate this “monumental” victory, which will give India a chance to “showcase its eligibility to become a permanent member” of the Council. New Delhi has long nurtured this ambition and backed it indefatigably, while throwing its lot with the other G-4 aspirants (Japan, Germany, Brazil).

Indian leaders trumpet their nation’s recent global ascendancy in a variety of ways. They: highlight the importance of India’s membership of the G-20, claim a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and demand India’s inclusion in what they for long, derisively, termed “cartels” like the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group. Not least, they build gigantic, spectacular, exorbitantly expensive projects like Terminal-3 at Delhi airport. In line with this is their boastful aspiration to transform India from an aid recipient to a donor.

India and Pakistan should acknowledge their respective and joint stakes in stabilising Afghanistan. This could best happen if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh convenes a summit in New Delhi with Presidents Zardari and Karzai to discuss peace-building, trade and transit, joint action against jehadi extremism, people-to-people exchanges, and economic cooperation. There are two preconditions for the success of such an initiative. First, the India-Pakistan dialogue must be resumed quickly. India’s refusal to talk to Pakistan has proved counter-productive. Mature diplomacy must replace this approach.

Does India have a half-way coherent policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two turbulent countries which have major implications for Indian security? Going by recent developments, the honest answer is no. India is losing opportunity after opportunity to help stabilise this critical part of its neighbourhood in the interests of the region’s people.

NEW DELHI, May 2 (IPS) - Relations between India and Iran, which deteriorated over the past three years from traditional friendship and warmth into mutual suspicion and tension, have started looking up again.

This development has significant implications for India’s role in West Asia and Central Asia as well as ties with its new 'strategic partner', the United States.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s one-day visit to New Delhi on Tuesday is expected to kickstart talks aimed at reviving long-stalled contracts for the purchase of natural gas, and at improving cooperation in a number of areas, including industry, communications and trade.

This was the first visit to India by an Iranian President since January 2003.

Ahmadinejad was originally meant to stop over in Delhi en route from Colombo for refuelling his plane.

But as soon as it was sounded out on this, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) seized the opportunity to make the stopover a full-fledged official visit, with a meeting with Indian President Pratibha Patil, and a dinner meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to which petroleum minister Murli Deora was also invited.

At the top of the agenda of the meeting with Singh was a proposed 7.4 billion dollar 2,600 km-long gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India, which has become an icon of mutual cooperation, friendship and peace, as well as a test for India’s willingness to chart out a foreign policy course independent of Washington.

The pipeline, considered relevant for India long-term energy security, was stalled for a variety of reasons. Some of these are commercial, but the more important ones are related to political pressure from the U.S., which regards Iran as a rogue state or "state of concern" and wants to isolate it.

More talks will be needed to finalise the pipeline agreement. But if India, Iran and Pakistan do complete the deal, New Delhi will have to reorient its overall foreign policy posture and prepare to face more explicit opposition and greater pressure from the U.S.

"India signalled a small shift in that direction just before Ahmadinejad’s visit," says Qamar Agha, a Middle East expert who was until recently a visiting professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia university here. "Last week, the MEA issued an unusually strong statement rebuffing the U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Tom Casey, which asked India to tell Iran that it must meet the obligations imposed upon it by the Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment activities."

The MEA statement said: "India and Iran are civilisations whose relations spans centuries. Both nations are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their relationship with the appropriate degree of care…. Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations as both countries believe that engagement and dialogue alone lead to peace."

A day later, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee also said that it is not for the U.S. or any other state to usurp the power to declare Iran a rogue nuclear state; it is entirely for the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to decide if Iran is developing nuclear weapons or not.

Earlier, India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan too had stressed India’s "civilisational and economic ties" with Iran, which give India a vantage point to engage with it. Iran, he said, "is a major country with tremendous influence, and you need to deal with it diplomatically... (with) erudition and understanding ..."

India’s new position stands in sharp contrast to its votes against Iran at the IAEA in September 2005 and again in early 2006, which resulted in Iran being brought before the United Nations Security Council for sanctions.

A former U.S. official and chief arms-control negotiator, Stephen Rademaker, has publicly said that India’s votes against Iran were secured through "coercion".

The reason for India’s recent change of stance has been attributed to various factors, including the ruling United Progressive Alliance’s need to demonstrate its "foreign policy independence" ahead of a general election due within a year, a desire to ensure the Left parties’ support, and keenness to tie up long-term energy supplies in an era of historically unprecedented oil prices.

"Perhaps the most important consideration," says Agha, "is that the Indian government knows that the nuclear cooperation deal with the United States is unlikely to be clinched soon, under George W. Bush’s presidency. This means that India does not have to look over the shoulder all the time at Washington, and that it can have greater autonomy in practice."

Agha added: ''New Delhi is also anxious to broaden and deepen its relationship with Tehran, not least because Iran holds the key to India’s access to Afghanistan, and to Central Asia, with its enormous natural wealth, including oil and natural gas. If India is to sustain 8 percent GDP growth, its policymakers believe it must establish guaranteed access to Central Asia’s resources before China and Russia consolidate their position in the region."

In recent weeks, India has discussed possibilities of deepening industrial and economic cooperation with Iran, beyond oil and gas.

India has agreed to help Iran build a crucial 600-km rail link in the north-south corridor of the proposed Trans-Asian Railway project. This will run from the Iranian port of Chabahar to Fahraj, and through Azerbaijan and Russia all the way to St Petersburg.

India is already constructing a road link between Zaranj and Delaram in Western Afghanistan, which will be linked to a transit corridor to Chabahar, which is close to India’s upper West coast.

This will enable India to trade with Afghanistan while bypassing Pakistan, which is reluctant to grant it India transit rights.

Other projects - including metallurgical industries, gas liquefaction and port development - are also under discussion. India is being offered large contracts in Iran for laying railway tracks, supplying electrical equipment, and upgrading railway signalling systems and train operations.

However, what of the crucial Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline? Ahmadinejad expressed the hope that the three countries’ petroleum ministers would reach an agreement on the project within the next 45 days.

But India’s Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon was more cautious and said a "lot of work" needs to be done to ensure that the pipeline is commercially viable and secure, and that gas supply is not interrupted.

However, it is clear that India sees the pipeline as a "confidence-building measure", not just a commercial project.

"Yet, that does not mean that the project will go through without major problems," says a high official in India’s petroleum ministry, who requested anonymity under briefing rules. "At least three issues need to be resolved. First, India wants a dedicated gas field to be nominated for the project, with detailed development plans. Second, India wants custody of the gas only at the India-Pakistan border, and not at the Pakistan-Iran border near Gwadar, as proposed."

Adds the official: "And then there’s the issue of pricing of the gas. India, Iran and Pakistan reached an agreement in January last year on the base price. But Iran wants any future price revision based on a shifting band, not a fixed one. This may not be acceptable to major consumers of gas in India, who can only pay a limited price for fuel in power generation."

None of these problems is insuperable but most agree that political will is needed to resolve them.